Feeding the Birds
by Annie Przypyszny

Runestone, volume 8

The refreshments kiosk at the botanical garden sells stale bread

to crumble up and fling at the ducks, 

                                                   yet, I remember being told

you’re not supposed to feed funnel cake

to the migrating geese at Cedar Point. 

                                           Still, when you see a murder

of crows sticking their quick, rude beaks into the carcass 

of a squirrel, you have to leave them be and avoid any impulse

to shoo away those shameless scavengers. Why? 

    Well, that’s the way life,

or death, or nature works—like how the man with the wetsuit 

and scuffed bucket is payed to toss greasy fish

into the whining throats of the zoo penguins, 

        and how you shouldn’t 

throw rice at a wedding, because it will swell the bellies 

of the songbirds and kill them. 

      And there’s no right way

to tell someone you love them, that you shape 

your daydreams around them, that you want to kiss them 

all over their body and read them to sleep every night—

you just have to keep taking chances and being wrong, 

because life, death, nature, something.